


A Time for Laughter

by flightinflame



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Tower, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Christmas Fluff, First Christmas, MRBBsecretsanta, Multi, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 11:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21899878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame
Summary: The simple fact of the matter was, Tony Stark hated Christmas. But he wants Steve and Bucky's first Christmas this century to be good.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 102
Collections: SVBB & MRBB Secret Santa 2019





	A Time for Laughter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lokivsanubis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokivsanubis/gifts).

> Wishing you the best for the holiday season and the new year!

The simple fact of the matter was, Tony Stark hated Christmas. He always had. It was easy enough in theory - and when he was younger, he had definitely appreciated the chance to sneak some champagne with the knowledge that no one would notice or care. But as time went on, it just became worse, as he found himself having to step forwards as the face of the company, the smiling host, the king of Stark Industries. He despised it. Utterly. The entire thing felt fake.

Which is why as the calendar ticked over to December, he felt a little sick, because this year it mattered. His previous Christmases, he hadn't really done that much - well, nothing real, just acting the part of the perfect Stark heir. But this year, it was going to be the first year that he celebrated it with Steve and Bucky - and that, he didn't want to ruin. And that frightened him, because he was aware of just how easily he could ruin it. After the Triskelion had been destroyed, Bucky had dragged Steve from the wreckage, and this had started. This strange friendship, which had blossomed into something more - and that in itself felt like some kind of miracle, something unscientific and unexplainable, because these two, who could love anyone - these two men whose love story had literally been the focus of hundreds of books and films - had found room in their hearts for him.

Tony Stark liked to think he didn't have a heart that wasn't a jumped up desk ornament, but when it was just the three of them, and the outside world was a worry for another day, it was easy for him to forget that he wasn't the kind of person who cared.

Of course, caring about Steve and Bucky didn't fix Christmas. It just made it worse. Because he was fairly sure that Steve hadn't been celebrating Christmas since the fourties (Well, assuming you didn't count doing time as a capsicle as celebrating), and Bucky was probably the same, since neither the Russians nor Hydra seemed the kind for allowing him to celebrate. So this meant it was their first Christmas this century, and Tony didn't want to fuck it up.

The two of them had gone out shopping for Christmas gifts together, Steve in a t-shirt, and Bucky only wearing long sleeves to hide his arm. He was grinning - they both were. And that left Tony to set up for decorating.

He contemplated the logistics of a tree decorating robot, as he tried to set up the dozen pines that would be decorating the hallway.  
"Just left a bit, no, left. Left. Lef... right.. no, left." He muttered at Dummy, adjusting one of them. He still doubted they were perfect. This was the kind of thing he should have delegated to Pepper - Pepper was actually good at this stuff, and he wasn't. 

His heart started to race, and he remembered the feeling of poison crawling slowly through his veins as his own invention poisoned him. He was tempted to say that was happening now, but he could already picture Bucky's smirk, and Steve's laughter as he called him overdramatic.

There was a knock on the door.  
"Jarvis, let them in."

"As you wish, sir."

The door swung open, and in the two of them walked, laden down with paper bags. Along the way, Steve had acquired a Santa hat, and Bucky had gained some reindeer antlers.  
"What are you-"

"We got you one!" Steve pulled out a knitted cap that looked like a Christmas pudding. "A woman was selling these for the animal sanctuary."

Tony snorted, staring at the hat, then putting it on Dummy, who triumphantly whirred away clutching it.   
"Ridiculous," he glared, mentally making a note to donate something to that charity. Anything which made Bucky grin like that was worth the money.

"And what else did you get?" Tony frowned. "I can organise a delivery of Christmas ornaments this evening if you want."

Bucky pulled out a bag of popcorn, and Steve some paper, both of them shoving the rest of their shopping out of his sight.

"What?" Tony frowned. "You can't really be expecting us to make decorations this year. We have people for that. Or I can design a robot, or..." He hesitated, and Bucky looked up at him.

"You're worried it won't be perfect, aren't you? You're seeing all the ways that it could possibly go wrong, that spoil it. That ruin the whole thing."

"What? No, I'm just saying we could be far more efficient if we-"

"You're a really bad liar." Steve pointed out, digging through one of his bags and pulling out a needle and thread. "We don't need professional decorators, or decoration designers."

"You're going to regret that when you see the end result of our work." Tony muttered. He looked at the two of them. "Really? You really want to make some popcorn string and paperchains? Because like, I get that used to be fun, but we've got money and-"

His words were cut off by Bucky walking over towards him, wrapping his arms around Tony's waist, and kissing him deeply. Tony wasn't sure when Bucky had worked out this was about the only way to make him be quiet, but he couldn't help enjoying the fact he'd worked it out.

Once he was quiet, Steve smirked.  
"The important thing isn't the trees being perfect, and anyway you've got like... twelve trees here. We can decorate one our way, can't we?"

Tony hesitated. He didn't like it if he couldn't control things. Letting things out of his control was how things went wrong, how people ended up hurt or dead, and Steve as looking at him as though he knew. As though he understood exactly what the problem was. 

The realisation that these two men understood more than anyone else made him nod slowly, looking between them.  
"One tree."

"One tree." Bucky agreed. "Hey, think I could put my arm as the star on top?"

"Probably not." Steve considered. "Weight would make the tree bend."

"I'm sure we could find a way of supporting it to prevent that." Tony muttered, and Bucky's eyes sparkled with mischief. Tony shrugged, and grinned.

"Fine then. You two show me how to make old-fashioned Christmas decorations, like the ancient old men you are."

"You're older than us, Tony," Steve pointed out, as Bucky carefully set up the paper, then grinned brightly.

"No using your laser to cut strips. We use scissors."

"Why?"

"Because it takes longer." Steve answered, carefully threading some popcorn. "Now, I get that it's boring for you because you're used to jetting off..." There was a faint hint of teasing in his eyes, which lessened the sting of his words. "But, we do it slowly so that we can talk. And laugh, and flirt... so like, for this string of popcorn, each time we can say something we like about the other person." He threaded a piece of popcorn.

"Tony can be pretty funny."

Tony took a piece, looking nervously between them and licking his lips.   
"Steve is actually a good artist."

Steve beamed, and continued. The suggestions continued to get both sillier and filthier.

Once the string was complete, they wrapped it around the tree, and then Bucky took the lead, cutting the paper down into strips.  
"So, you can do this a bunch of ways." He explained. "You can write things down there, like, ideas of what the person has to do when they undo it, but..." He hesitated. "I thought this year we could just kiss as we stick them together."

"There's...a lot of bits of paper here," Tony pointed out. 

"Yeah. There are." Bucky looked him in the eye. "Maybe by the end of it, you'll have stopped panicking so much."

Tony rolled his eyes but reached for the first pieces.

***

In the end, they got the tree decorated with popcorn and paperchains. Surrounded by all the other designer trees, their tree looked a little clumsy, a little fragile. It certainly wasn't conventionally beautiful like the rest of them. It was beautiful in an entirely different way, in a way that was theirs.

Every time Tony looked at it through the holiday season, he was reminded of shared kisses and loving words. He kept the paperchains, put them up in his laboratory, as a reminder. 

The following year, he still had the big Stark trees, and the designers that decorated them to perfection, for the big parties that he was expected to hold. But he had another tree, his favourite one, in the room that he shared with Steve and Bucky. A room and a space where they could curl up together, and look at it, a room that had a piece of mistletoe above the doorway, because this was his home. Not the wider house, which was the space for Stark Industries, not even the wider penthouse that was for the Avengers. But this room, which he shared with his boyfriends and their tree covered in their own decorations, which they had made, together. Because this was where he remembered what it was like to be loved.

Bucky pulled him closer, and he tore his gaze away from the tree to focus on kissing the man before him.


End file.
